


Straight as an Arrow (to You)

by nightships



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Canada, F/M, Pilots, pilot AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 08:00:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12054699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightships/pseuds/nightships
Summary: The Avro Arrow program was a shining beacon for Canada - when it was cancelled, questions went unanswered, and reporter Emma Swan has no intentions of leaving them that way. Major Killian Jones couldn't agree less, especially given his own history with the program, but Emma wouldn't be Emma if she let that stop her.





	Straight as an Arrow (to You)

**1959**

“Jones! General’s office,  _now_.”

Killian bites back a long-suffering sigh as his commanding officer flies past the doorframe, sure that the speed in his step doesn’t bode well for the morning before them. In a few strides he’s following a pair of colonels down the hall - the further they go, the more tension he can feel.

He has to sit through twenty minutes of the Royal Canadian Air Force’s version of small talk before anything interesting happens. Then the general at the desk across from them reaches forward, trying to shuffle the two papers floating across his otherwise empty desk.

“Air Marshal Curtis phoned this morning. The Arrow program has been cancelled, effective immediately.”

He’s long since learned how to suppress the urge to speak out of turn, but his eyebrow shoots skyward when he hears his superior officer cough in surprise at his side. If it’s a joke, he can’t wait to hear the punchline.

“What do you mean, cancelled?” The man spurts. “The Air Marshal just ordered a new round of engineering tests Tuesday.”

“Air Marshal Curtis did not send out the order, Colonel. The Prime Minister announced it today.”

Suddenly the twin pages make sense. They’re scooped up immediately, leaving Killian to peer over the shoulder of Colonel Walt. He can’t make sense of the words he’s seeing, no matter how many times his eyes scan the paper - what this means, what he’s done to them has just hit his chest full-impact.

“What are we supposed to tell the other pilots?”

The general blinks at him just before the rumble of a jet squadron begins to rattle the framed certificates on the walls. His sigh is silent under the roar of the engines, but the resigned look on his face is louder than any of it.

“Tell them to pack their bags.”

**Summer 1968**

The wall is sticky, humid as the air on the tarmac outside. Pools of mirage shimmer beneath the heat rolling from engines shining brighter than the actual sun. It’s early, but everyone milling about the base has been up for hours.

 _Wrong day for long sleeves, Emma_ , she thinks to herself, scanning the vinyl placards on the wall. She fans herself with the pages of the notebook and it’s not enough, not by a long shot, but she doesn’t want to be dripping with sweat when she walks into this guy’s office - one she’s just spotted as being on the third floor.

“I’m here to speak with the Major.”

The secretary pauses at her typewriter, short fingernails skimming the return bar. Her eyes fall to her notebook, which Emma hastily presses deeper into her pocket.

“He’s unavailable at the moment.”

“I’ve left four messages. My name is Emma Swan, and I’m a reporter with The Portland Press Herald. I only need fifteen minutes, and I know he usually takes his lunch in about…ten,” she presses, glancing at the clock on the wall behind them.

“He’s taking it early today, so you’ll have to come back when -”

The door opens, and a man’s head pokes out to address the secretary, who glances guiltily at her as if she can shove him back into his office with a look alone.

“Samantha, I’m taking a call with Bangor. I’m going to need you to take notes.”

“Of course.” She moves to stand and then turns back to Emma. “Come back later, Miss Swan, and you can try to schedule an appointment then.”

“I only need ten minutes,” Emma insists, stepping forward and sticking her foot against the door. “The Toronto Star is publishing an interview with Air Marshal Curtis. The air marshal didn’t outright deny the rumors regarding a fifth Avro CF-105 Arrow, sir. Your base cooperates regularly with Malton and North Bay. Do you believe the Air Marshal was -”

“Let me stop you there,” he interrupts, holding a hand up to physically stop her from stepping into his office. Emma scowls, but her foot comes off the door.

“I know you were in Toronto ten years ago, Major,” she pleads, meeting him square in the eye. They’re more lively than she expected for a military man, but all she wants to find is a fracture in his dismissal. “You knew those engineers and those pilots. You flew an Arrow. Just give me five minutes.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Swan. I’m unable to comment about it. Please excuse me.”

A puff of stale air washes over her as he swings his door shut, cool compared to the heat in the hallway, and Emma exhales a curse to the empty receptionist’s desk. She rests her head against the wallpaper for a moment, eyes shut so she can  _just think for a second, Swan_. The wallpaper smells like soap flakes, which seems odd, and it’s just distracting enough that she doesn’t hear the door open beside her.

Emma rips herself away from the wall as the receptionist goes to her desk, retrieving a folder and looking at her like she’s grown an extra set of arms.

“Did you need anything else, Miss Swan?”

“No thanks,” she replies tersely, taking the hint and starting down the corridor at a brisk pace. Emma looks back as she turns the corner, committing his office number to memory, and turns back just in time to see the edge of a door swinging toward her.

* * *

The back of her head is throbbing, and the lights on the ceiling aren’t helping. The  _ceiling_. Emma blinks, and sure enough there are drop-tile panels hanging above her. There’s a face, too, looking more and more concerned as she reclaims her consciousness.

“Are you okay?”

“Oh, I’m great. I’m just taking a little nap.”

“You’re bleeding.” He nods toward her cheek and then seems to remember himself, offering her a hand. The guilt in his eyes makes sense now that she can see it clearly. “The nurse’s station is just upstairs. Allow me to escort you there.”

Emma regards the open door she’s sprawled in front of, catching the nameplate fastened to the wall adjacent.

“You’re Major Killian Jones?” she asks, nodding to the door.

“I am.”

“And you hit me with your door just now?”

“By accident only,” he replies defensively, tugging her up to stand with him. “I could hardly see through to the other side where you were standing.” He sighs, and before she can blink he’s schooled his face back into an expression as practiced as his posture. “May I escort you to the nurse’s station?”

The words are barely out of his mouth before she’s stumbling, her knees shaking and buckling and threatening to send her back down onto the floor. Her hand shoots out, landing in the curve of his elbow, and sure enough he’s there to steady her. Emma breathes out the best shaky sigh she can come up with, taking several seconds to drag her eyes off the floor. “Maybe…I could just sit in your office for a second,” she suggests, blinking like her vision’s gone blurry again. He looks like he wants to argue, so she reaches up with shaky fingers to the cut on her cheek. The hiss of pain she lets out is genuine. It seems to help him decide.

“Just a minute, then,” he decides, ushering her through the door.

* * *

 

“Hold still…there,” Killian mutters, securing the bandage across her cheek. She has yet to introduce herself, and with every passing second he feels more and more certain the omission is purposeful. “I’m afraid you won’t be able to cover that with makeup for a few days.”

“I’ve had worse,” she answers plainly, sounding much more lucid than she had in the hallway. He drops his hand and his eyes narrow, searching her with new purpose.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Emma Swan.”

“And what brings you to the base today, Miss Swan?” Her gaze is unrelenting, and he can tell she really meant it before - whatever worse is, it’s certainly curious that she speaks about it so casually. Everything about her invites questions he doesn’t have time to ask. He’s not sure she’d answer them if he did.

She sets aside the water and tugs a weathered steno pad from a pocket of her skirt, surprising him yet again. “I’m a reporter with the The Portland Press Herald. I came here to speak with Major Côté about Air Marshal Curtis’ remarks to the Toronto Star regarding the Arrow rumors.”

He only just manages to keep his expression blank, curling his fingers around the arm of his chair, but it’s like she can see right through the desk. Her eyes cut into him as she sits on the edge of her chair, waiting to record his responses.

“Major Jones, what do you know about the Arrow program?”

“I know that it was cancelled a decade ago,” he answers carefully. “In Canada.”

“Yes, but Major Côté was born a Canadian citizen. He transferred here in 1960, and became a permanent citizen a few years ago.”

“Miss Swan, I cannot speak on Major Côté’s behalf.”

“Then talk to me as you.”

“I can’t do that either.”

“You can’t or you won’t?” she presses angrily. He watches her stand and walk forward, not an ounce of shakiness in her stance as she approaches. Her eyes are fiery, and yet greener than ever. “Do you know what it’s like to work on something for years only to have to give it up because no one will give you an answer?”

The clock on the wall ticks impatiently, awaiting his reply, and shards of light cut across the blinds onto her hair as planes take off on the airstrip outside. He presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth, willing his pulse to calm as the muscles in his jaw pull tight.

“I do,” he tells her, standing up as well. She looks relieved, but only until she sees he’s headed for the door and turning the handle. “I’m sorry about your injury, Miss Swan. If you feel unwell again on your way out, the nurse’s office is just one floor up on the left wing.”

“But -”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, nodding out to the hall. Her eyes darken and she pockets her things in a rush, sweeping past him and turning right with a muttered comment he doesn’t catch. Her heels click in his ears long after she’s gone.

* * *

It’s amazing, the difference he feels taking two steps off the pavement into the grass in front of the cafe. Sun-soaked leaves give chase in the breeze as he ducks below the low-hanging branch of an ash tree, sucking in a deep breath of air unpolluted by jet fuel. His usual chair rocks to the left as he sits, and the table’s still wet from the morning’s rain, but it’s the only table completely submerged in shade so he stays where he is.

Here he remembers how silence presses in on his ears. Here he reconnects with the roar of the breeze through the grass, the thunderclap of shoes on the pavement as patrons exit down the front steps to the cafe. Here he finds it easy to drown out the din of his thoughts and pretend he’s taking in the scenery over coffee as black as his shoes. It’s all easy until she arrives.

“I didn’t think they let you guys eat off the base.”

Emma Swan stands before him in the brightest trenchcoat he’s ever seen, the sleeves bunched at the creases as though she’s been pushing them up all day. She’s still wearing the bandage on her cheek and one of the buttons on her coat is much looser than the others, but it’s the steno pad that makes her instantly recognizable.

“How did you know I was here?” He asks warily, watching her shake the coat off her back and take a seat across from him. She surprises him - it’s becoming a habit - by smiling.

“I may or may not have befriended the secretary who schedules your lunches.”

“Which one?”

“Doesn’t matter.” She flips through her notepad, giving him a brief glance at her chicken-scratch handwriting. The pages are lined, but she seems to treat them as suggestions, as writing covers nearly every inch of paper.

“Miss Swan, I told you that I was unable to answer your questions regarding the - regarding Air Marshal Curtis’ commentary,” he tells her carefully. “What’s more, you’re wasting your time on a wild goose chase.”

“I found you, didn’t I?” She retorts, raising her eyebrows. He’s unimpressed until she reaches into her pocket once more, drawing out a framed photograph he recognizes from his own office. Killian reaches for it, eyes wide and affronted, but she tugs her elbow back.

“You and Major Côté both became permanent citizens of the United States after serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force…unless you want to tell me that isn’t you.”

Emma turns the photo around and he remains frozen, his eyes unerringly drawn to his younger self and the three other pilots staring back at him. He’s just as annoyed that he didn’t realize it was gone as he is to see it in her grip. If she’s trying to get under his skin, she’s doing a damn good job of it.

“Why did you steal this from me?” He asks her, bringing his voice low.

“Would you have told me who those men were if I’d asked?”

He presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth, reining in the frustration she seems so intent on drawing out. It gives her the answer she wants anyway, and the frame feels heavy when she places it in his hand.

“You trained with the Arrows. You flew them yourself, if my research is right,” she tells him, leaning forward. “You didn’t spend years of your life training just to have the rug pulled out from beneath your feet. If you can look me in the eye and tell me you haven’t spent one day of your life wondering what happened to all of that work once the program was cancelled, then I’ll stop, but you should know I can spot a lie when I see one.”

Between the sunlight painting the cafe behind her and the red coat she’s wearing, her hair almost glows. For a moment he’s dragged back to the thoughts on his mind when he was drinking coffee alone - the sun at 70,000 feet, the way it burnt the edges of the clouds white as it dipped below them, the feeling of complete freedom at his fingertips.

He waves a hand for her to take her seat before re-entering his, staring hard at the spiral bound edge of her notebook.

“I don’t know how much I can say,” he finally tells her, unsure of how he means the words. “I did serve with Major Côté, and we did train to fly interceptor aircraft…including the Arrows. The four of us in that picture were together for two years, but they transferred to other positions in Ontario. Major Côté and I were recruited to come to Loring because we didn’t have any family. Easier to pack up your old life and start a new one without attachments.”

When he looks up he expects more smugness, more of her satisfied grin, but the expression Emma wears is different. What’s more, she has yet to reach for her pen and paper.

“Aren’t you going to write this down?”

* * *

It’s twenty minutes later that the waitress appears, refilling his coffee and asking if Emma would like a drink. She orders a caffè mocha without a beat and makes him wonder if it’s even the first time she’s been here. For every question of hers he answers, she inspires another.

He still works to keep his replies as impersonal as he can, and he knows she notices, but the fire in her eyes doesn’t die out. If anything, his words are somehow stoking the flame, making it rise up until her words rush off her tongue.

“What about the planes? How soon were they destroyed after the program was cancelled?”

“I can’t -” Those eyes press into him once again, and his voice drops lower. “I have to get back to the base soon, Miss Swan.”

She must hear the desperation in his voice, because she nods and lets him stand without following this time, waiting until he’s slipped his bills beneath his cup to speak.

“There’s a white stucco diner a few miles east of the base. It’s called Granny’s,” she mentions to him, shoving her pen through the spiral binding of her notepad. “They let you order off the brunch menu all day, in case you were wondering.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

* * *

Leaning onto the back two legs of her chair, she pictures him in that photograph, all straight-backed and stern and proper as he stood next to the three other pilots. It hasn’t yet been a decade, but she knows he’s brought something besides his piloting experience to the United States. There’s a shadow covering the things he tells her, even on the rare occasion he cracks a smile, and while she’s here to figure out what truly happened to the Arrow program…she can’t help being drawn to him, too.

Emma nearly topples backwards as knuckles rap on the door to her right, dragging her out of her thoughts. Granny Lucas stands impatiently on the other side, raising an unamused eyebrow at the sight of Emma’s pajamas.

“There’s a man waiting downstairs for you,” she explains, eyeing her pinstripe sleep shirt. “New friend?”

Emma blinks back surprise, wondering wildly if she’s summoned him with her thoughts. “Tell him I’ll be down soon.”

He’s not heinously early, but it’s not their usual meeting time, either. Her brow furrows as she assumes it must be bad news, and it deepens when she catches sight of him in her usual booth, two mugs of coffee already on the table.

“Don’t tell me you came all the way out here to say you have to reschedule,” she begins, sliding across the squeaky vinyl and pretending not to see he’s memorized her order.

“I don’t have to reschedule,” he supplies easily, setting aside his newspaper at the sight of her. He looks her up and down, and the intense blue of his eyes makes her feel like she’s being scanned. “I’m off duty for the evening. You’ve done your buttons up wrong, you know,” he adds, pointing toward her blouse.

Her cheeks color when she sees that he’s right. There’s nothing she can do about it right in front of him, but it still earns her a look from Granny when she approaches to take their orders. She asks for the breakfast special before Killian can ask for anything, and Granny nods gruffly as she swings through the kitchen door once again.

“For someone who runs a bed and breakfast, she certainly isn’t a morning person, is she?”

“Who, Granny?” Emma asks, looking over her shoulder toward the kitchen. “She’s more bark than bite.” The woman herself peeks out from the kitchen window just then, as though their voices carry higher than the cooktop and the vent fan, and Emma bites back a grin. “And she doesn’t charge much for rent or a hot meal.”

She feels his eyes on her and turns back, catching him just as he glances down to his coffee. “Look, Swan. If I’m to keep meeting with you like this, I need to change tactics. You’re bound to draw questions eventually.”

“Has someone questioned me?” Emma asks, running her finger through the whipped cream on top of her drink. She knows the answer before he tells her - he wouldn’t be here if he’d been caught - and licks the froth off her fingertip as she listens to the way he’ll word his concerns this time.

“No, but that doesn’t mean the risk isn’t there.”

“You’ve flown hundreds of miles per hour miles up in the air.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Of course it is.”

It’a quieter as they eat - Killian slides butter over his own neatly-cut pancakes, and Emma drenches hers in syrup and cuts them bite by bite - but she doesn’t give up on the topic entirely. He’s still keeping something from her, and it’s getting more difficult to ignore by the day.

“You said you’ve got the afternoon off?” She asks suddenly, distracting him from his half of the tip. Killian nods, although it’s apprehensive, and it’s all she needs before she’s standing and moving toward the door.

* * *

“I thought we just agreed that we were going to be more covert.”

“This is covert.” Killian scoffs at her argument, eyeing the sunflower-yellow Volkswagen Beetle she’s unlocking, but she only gets more insistent. “It  _is_. Nobody will expect to see you driving through the streets in this.”

The challenge in her eyes dares him to spend more time arguing about it in the heat of the parking lot. Loath as he is to go on a mystery adventure, she wins over the afternoon sun.

Emma seems to be driving him back toward the base until she isn’t. Her car shudders as pavement suddenly turns to gravel, cutting through a field of wildflowers that threaten to overtake the road. White and purple blur before the trees, ivy curls around the power lines, and flickers of blue peek through where dead limbs have fallen. The rumble of a plane engine passes overhead just as he opens his mouth to ask where they are, far louder and lower than he’s ever experienced off the base. He’s half convinced they’re back at Loring until they emerge at the top of a hill and he sees the entire airfield spread out beneath them.

“Don’t worry,” she calls, barely audible as the plane climbs into the evening sky above them. “It’s legal to be up here, too.”

Killian stares out at the runways, at the flashes of the waning sun reflecting off the planes taxiing into their hangars for the night. He can see his own office window from here, too, which alarms him until he feels her standing at his side.

“My brother signed up to train as a pilot when I was fourteen,” she tells him, apropos of nothing. “Our mom raised us in this little row house in Bangor, east of the airport. We grew up falling asleep to the planes.” Emma smiles, and he watches as her eyes follow a bomber jet down the runway. “I used to make him pull me around our backyard in our toy wagon - we called it playing takeoff.”

He’s almost afraid to ask, but it feels like she’s giving him permission. “Where is he now?”

“Off being a big shot at Oceana.” She grins wider, turning toward him, and in the setting sun her eyes are burnt gold and green as the hill before them. “My point is…this isn’t just some story my editor dropped in my in tray. I don’t know if there’s any truth to the rumors about the program. I don’t know if there’s really some secret fifth Avro Arrow stashed away in a hangar across the Atlantic.” She pauses and turns to face him fully, her hair wreathed in sunlight, and he’d know she meant it by her voice alone. “But if even just a  _part_  of some of this turns out to be true, don’t you want to know you tried everything you could think of to make sure people knew?”

There’s more to her question than that. He can hear it over the hum of the jets on the ground, over the crickets and cicadas and tree frogs welcoming the dusk. Suddenly he can see that she’s not simply looking for answers to the questions she’s been scribbling on her paper. Emma wants to know if he has the faith to help her find them.

His own eyes are true and soft when he nods his head once, agreeing to help her on one condition.

“Name it.”

“Call me Killian from now on.”

* * *

It’s Thursday when she hits her boiling point. They’re meeting at a civilian bar, and the first open barstool is only a few blessed steps from the door. She slides onto it without bothering to hide herself and asks for a Brandy Alexander on the rocks, ignoring the questioning look it earns her.

He arrives two sips into her third glass, and she can tell he’s surprised to find her at the bar by the sound of his voice. He’s even more surprised to see the drink in front of her, but she can’t find it in her to regret the spice of the nutmeg on her tongue.

“I thought you were bringing research from the library,” he begins carefully, stopping short of taking the seat next to her. Emma chuckles, shrugging and waving her arms wide.

“Can’t bring what doesn’t exist, can I?” His eyes flash from hesitant to something that looks dangerously like pity. Emma refuses to take it in, so she shakes her head, dropping her eyes to her drink and picking it up again. “They either don’t know or they don’t have it.” Her tone is a warning, one he disregards as he steps closer.

“Perhaps we could take this somewhere else?”

“I’m fine right here.” It comes out more stubborn and childish than she means it to, but there’s no taking it back, and it feels good, almost better than the brandy.

“I think you’ve had enough to drink, Swan.”

“Is that the way you talk to your trainees?” She twists away from the bar to face him head-on, ignoring the way his eyes go wide with their own warning. There’s a voice in her head telling her that he’s right, that she’s crossing a line, but it’s remarkably easy to drown out. “You’re not my editor, Major, and I’m not one of your pilots. I don’t take orders from you.”

His jaw clenches and relaxes. She feels a hollow satisfaction in the motion, but his eyes don’t light with the frustration. She catches a flicker of something else as he strides forward and lowers himself onto the seat at her side, ordering himself a rum and coke.

“What are you doing?”

“It’s bad form to let a lady drink alone,” he answers in that maddeningly even voice. The two drinks she’s finished want her to push back, to tell him she doesn’t want his company tonight, but then he clinks his glass against hers and just like that, all the fight drains out of her.

* * *

The stars are out and strong despite the street lamp shining on the hood of her car. They’ve long since left the bar, and the heat of the day has given way to a pleasantly cool night. Were it not for the drinks and his jacket draped around her shoulders, she might have felt goosebumps rising on her skin.

“How is it you’ve gone almost ten years not knowing?” She asks him, dragging the end of her heel through a crack in the pavement.

“The same way everyone else has, I suppose,” he hedges. Sober or tipsy, Emma always has more to say. “The same way you have.”

She shakes her head. “Don’t do that. It’s not the same for me as it is for you.” She lifts her hand out from his jacket, turning her wrist so her palm faces up. Though the condensation from her drinks washed some of it away, a bit of newspaper ink still lingers on her fingertips. “I’ve been at the library all week trying to make figure this out. Nobody here ran more than a column on the Arrow cancellation. Before I came here, I talked to at least ten other people who worked on the program. Do you know how much it costs to make ten calls to Canada?”

Killian looks at her, feeling the strangest urge to smile, but he doesn’t want to draw her ire again. If he’s completely honest, he feels like shifting closer and taking the job of warming her from his jacket.

“There wouldn’t be many articles focused on the program being cancelled,” he tells her gently. “The big story was the work that was lost. Only four of us were pilots, but tens of thousands of men and women went home to their families empty-handed that night.” A shadow hides his eyes as he ducks his chin, staring at the hood of her car. Scuffed as the points of her shoes are, the paint is spotless.

“The Avro Arrow was more than just a couple of planes and their pilots. It was the promise of the future, of safety. It was supposed to mean a better life for the people who’d go on to build dozens of planes in their lifetimes,” he muttered. “It sounds ridiculous after nine years, but I can’t help feeling like I could have done more.”

“What more could you have done?”

He shrugs. “Trained more. Consulted more of the engineers directly. We hardly met with them in person to discuss flights and whether we -”

“Hey.” The weight of a decade’s worth of silence has weighed so heavy on his shoulders that he doesn’t quite know how stop himself. Like she knows - and she always seems to know - Emma slides her ink-stained fingers across the hood of her car. They ghost the side of his hand, silently asking if this is a line he wants to cross, but they don’t quite wait for permission before brushing over his palm, her fingers almost covering his.

“I’ve never seen you fly a plane, but I have watched you spend day after day trying to find answers with me. You didn’t get the title ‘Major’ because you sit around on your ass and let other people do things for you. You did what you could then, and you’re doing what you can now.”

“Am I?” He asks her, more openly and honestly than he’s ever been before. This isn’t subtly coded conversation in a cafe or a diner. This isn’t interviews over pancakes and coffee. For the first time since he left Canada, he’s speaking his fears aloud, and the fact that it’s to her isn’t lost on him as he meets her gaze. “You haven’t seen me fly because I haven’t flown, Swan. I haven’t been a commissioned officer for nine years. I likely won’t be, unless policy changes…I ran from who I was to come here and start over, and I’m not sure I’ve stopped running since.”

Emma’s quiet for a long time. Her eyes trace the edge of the tree line where it meets the open night sky and move lower, watching a lonely cab as it passes the neighboring buildings. He thinks he’s finally rendered her speechless for a while, and the cool air is bitter when her hand slips away from his, but her eyes are endearingly stubborn when she slides off the car and faces him.

“You’re not running alone right now,” she says softly, making it clear she means every word, “Not until we figure this out. Whatever answers we find, we’re going to find them…even if I have to take out twenty dollars in quarters from the bank.”

She looks like she means it, and it’s easy to let a smile tug up the corner of his mouth. What’s hard, he finds, is pulling his eyes back up now that he’s let them drop down to her lips, which have only grown closer since she stopped speaking.

The smell of brandy mingles in the air between them, and he’s the first to pull away. Killian worries he’s offended her until he sees she’s retreated, too, making a show of sliding off his jacket.

* * *

Emma manages not to make a fool of herself dropping him off, but she can’t help staring at her hand at every stoplight between the bar and Granny’s. It’s sheer luck that gets her upstairs to her room without meeting the woman face to face, and the second she’s in her pajamas she resumes the task in the light of her room.

He hadn’t pulled away. Neither had she. It was uncharted territory, and now that she can see the ink smeared between her fingerprints she wonders what exactly she was getting herself into by holding his hand. Whatever they found or didn’t find, she still paid rent in an apartment in Portland.

 _Unless you didn’t_ , said a tiny voice, one she’d barely begun to let herself listen to. It was only late at night like this that she let herself wonder how bad it would be if there  _wasn’t_  a secret truth to be uncovered. She can still hear the sound of his voice in her head - he didn’t say much, but she’s sure he’d told anyone what he told her tonight. It should weigh her down, scare her off, but if the feeling didn’t come then it’s not coming now.

Emma looks over at the notepad on the desk, one she hasn’t touched all day, and allows herself one thought before turning off the light. Maybe this isn’t about her getting answers. Maybe it’s about forgiveness instead.

* * *

The next few weeks drag by for the both of them, but it bothers her less and less with each passing day. She’s tried and failed to forget what late night thoughts have brought to mind, and Killian isn’t helping - not when he shares stories of his past, not when he brings in pictures from his time in the Royal Canadian Air Force, and certainly not on the hotter nights when he shows up for their meetings out of uniform.

Tonight he’s arrived to Granny’s in little more than a plaid shirt and slacks. She can’t blame him, given the heat waves sliding across the pavement, but the more she sees him in civilian clothing the more she sees the man instead of the Major. He can’t see her through the window as she approaches, but she can see him, and Emma takes the few seconds to take him in uninterrupted.

He looks nervous. It’s a face she’s never seen him wear - frustration and annoyance she’d recognize in an instant, but uncertainty takes something like five years off of him. Her lips fall from their involuntary smile as she realizes he might have bad news. The door opens, the high-pitched creak signaling his entrance to the entire restaurant, and before she can entirely school her expression, he’s spotted her.

“Did you find something?” she asks, before he can realize she’s turned almost all the way around in her seat to watch his approach.

“No,” he answers, sliding into the seat, “not really. There’s something I’ve figured out, though.”

He pauses and looks at her, and Emma leans forward on the table, her hand curled around the glass of lemonade in front of her like a lifeline. “Is it the plane, or something else? Documents? You said that there might be records tucked away somewhere where nobody thought to look.”

Killian shakes his head with a smile, but she can see the nervousness lingering in the rise of his hand as it moves to cover hers.

“Swan…I don’t know if we’re ever going to the information we’re looking for. I’ve felt this way for weeks now, and I’d be willing to bet you have too.”

She blinks as he talks, both at the hand covering hers and the man sitting across from her, and her stomach swoops as she realizes what he’s trying to do. This hand isn’t asking to bring her closer. It’s an apology. It’s  _goodbye_. She’s floored at how much she hates the idea now that it’s more than a distant inevitability - now that it’s right here in front of her.

“The more time we spend looking for information we’re likely never to find, the more I tell you about my time in Canada, the less I believe we’re doing anything but dragging up old memories.”

“I know it’s taking a long time…sometimes it does,” she interrupts, trying to stop him before he can give up on her entirely. “I’m still willing to try if you are.”

His fingers coax hers off the glass, but Emma doesn’t want to play along, not if it’s the only consolation she’ll have when the night is over and she’s alone in this again.

“I don’t want to keep looking to the past for answers. Not when I think I may have found a new way forward,” he says softly, persistent in reaching for her.

Emma can’t keep the composure on her face, especially now that she sees a waitress headed their way, so she bolts. It’s cowardly, and it doesn’t even pay off; in seconds he’s out there in the blazing heat of the parking lot, following hurriedly and calling her name. When she finally does turn around, he’s close enough for her to see concern etched clearly across his brow.

“What the hell was that?”

“You’re saying goodbye, aren’t you?” She asks, as though her behavior makes sense. “It’s okay. I get it. You don’t have to keep going.”

“I don’t think you understand me at all, actually.” He steps in closer still, obscuring the both of them behind the fence beside her car. “I didn’t know it at the time, but when you rammed that head of yours into my doorway on the base, Emma, you were giving me something to believe in. The Avro Arrow program was important to me, and you understood. It doesn’t matter that we didn’t find what we were looking for. What matters is you reminded me how good it felt to be part of something.”

Killian reaches out more carefully than ever, the blue of the sky reflecting in his eyes as he looks at her and presses something into her hand. In her cowardice, she must have missed this scrap of newspaper as he retrieved it from his pocket.

Job offerings. He’s cut out a section of classifieds, even circled one or two that have to do with writing. One in particular has the words  _This one?_ penned neatly in ink, and now she finds herself more bewildered than ever.

“Be part of something, Swan. Something new.”

The neat folds of the paper and the neat press of his shirt are both ruined as she presses her hand to his chest and closes the short gap separating them. The hot sun is nothing compared to his hand against her cotton blouse, to the hum of triumph in his voice, to the spark of her lips on his, fleeting and white-hot all the same. She pulls back just as he moves to gently cup her head in his hand, taking care not to let the world slip out from beneath her feet.

“All right, but on one condition.”

“Name it,” he breathes, already chasing the kiss.

“Call me Emma.”


End file.
